For the last few weeks, a small corner store/cafe at 42 Dewson Street has been in the news here in Toronto. It has been in the news because, despite the fact that Toronto is actively working to allow more uses like these in residential neighborhoods, it is my understanding that it currently remains a legal non-conforming use. Meaning, it's allowed to operate only because it's been there for a long time.
The specific fight right now, though, is around whether this corner store is allowed to serve people coffee. It can sell groceries and stuff, but can it serve coffee? (Also, self-serve coffee is apparently an entirely different thing and acceptable behavior.) The store owner thinks the answer is yes. But then somebody called in an anonymous tip and the city came knocking:
CityNews reached out to the City of Toronto for a response. They said “the building at 42 Dewson St. is in a Residential Zone, and a non-residential/commercial use is not permitted. Any change of use from a Retail Grocery/Variety Store is not permitted; and that includes store staff preparing food or drinks (or coffees) for sale to patrons. A change of use, requires zoning relief from the Committee of Adjustment.”
Okay, so serving coffee to people is potentially problematic. But why? Here are three possible reasons that immediately come to mind:
Somebody else in the neighborhood is serving coffee and they're ruthlessly trying to eliminate all competition.
Serving coffee encourages people to linger and lingering people make more noise relative to people who don't linger.
The neighborhood is filled with pedants who like to read zoning by-laws in their spare time and they just can't stand seeing such a blatant disregard for refreshment rules.
There are, of course, other possible reasons. And according to Twitter/Reddit, the real reason is that the property is owned by a rich developer and the neighborhood is, for a variety of reasons, pissed off at said rich developer. I don't know that this is true, but maybe it is. Because fighting over served versus self-served coffee seems like an insane thing to argue about.
If you happen to agree, Dan Seljak has a petition you can sign, here.
Photo: CityNews
When it comes to a real estate market, there are always the typical metrics: sale prices, rents, vacancy and so on. But I’m always interested when somebody looks at the market in a different way and comes up with other kinds of metrics.
That’s why I was intrigued when I stumbled upon this post by Sam Floy, where he looks at the concentration of coffee shops and friend chicken shops across London in order to determine which neighborhoods are in fact “up and coming.”
To give you a taste, here’s his coffee shop map:
His thinking was that if a neighborhood had a high density of coffee shops, a low density of fried chicken shops, and relatively low house prices, then it could probably be thought of as up and coming.
Coffee shops are often considered to be leading indicators of urban change (i.e. gentrification), and, well, friend chicken places I guess speak to a different kind of neighborhood.
These sorts of playful studies aren’t going to tell you exactly which numbers you should be plugging into your development pro forma. But I think unconventional analyses can sometimes tell you a bit more of the story behind the numbers.